Major Days Gone Issues That Need to Be Addressed by PS5
Days Gone was the first of its kind when it came to the market. It was an open-world zombie apocalypse title that brought really good gameplay forward to the players. But as obvious it is with products with such characters, it had some glaring technical issues and was riddled with bugs. These faults are some things that PS5 needs to address on the release of Days Gone 2.
Soon, Sony will officially unveil its next-generation console, the PS5. And only after the release, the main roster of games that the console will be providing will be seen. While the company has not made an official statement, there has been a news and the player-base believes that they will at least see potential appearances from God of War 2, Horizon Zero Dawn 2, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and Days Gone 2. (Probably not all of them, but these titles will be big for the PS5).
Days Gone, which was released in April of 2019, failed to meet expectations that were hoped it would reach. But it did manage to create a big enough fan-base to outsell God of War, The Last Guardian, and Detroit: Become Human in its first month, enough to greenlight a sequel to Bend Studio’s open-world zombie adventure. And if Bend Studios decides to go with PS5 for the next installment, it would need to address some major issues.
Deacon St. John & the Supporting Cast
One of the major flaws that emerged with the original game was the game’s main character. We play as outlaw-turned-drifter Deacon St. John, excellently portrayed by Star Wars: The Force Unleashed actor Sam Witwer. The story revolves around the character looking for answers about his wife. But Deacon himself is incredibly uneven, and his lust for murder and revenge often becomes too much.
The supporting characters that help Deacon, along with his quests, feel really unreal and unused. This is so because no other character is fleshed out beyond their basic role in advancing the narrative besides Sarah. For example, Deacon’s best friend Boozer is injured in the first moments of the game and hence plays a very small role over the radio for the majority of the later game. There are simply too many side-characters, catalyst characters, and camp leaders that could’ve been used to flesh out the core cast of characters, including its villains.
Jack of All Trades, Master of None
Bend Studio went absolutely all-out while creating Days Gone. With an expansive and gorgeous open-world with a cinematic story, light RPG mechanics, multiple hub-worlds, vehicle gameplay and combat, hundreds of collectibles, challenge modes, and endgame content in the form of the game’s biggest hook, Freaker Hordes. Days Gone became the definition of “Jack of all Trades” as a game. It did a little bit of everything but did nothing great.
Performance Issues & Bugs on PS4
Despite the major issues the game has in the storytelling and the few glitches in different places, the game plays out pretty well. The point where the character of the whole game falls apart is how Days Gone performs on PS4. Even after a full year of patches and updates, the game’s performance hasn’t all that improved on the PlayStation 4. It is still suffering from major issues with frame rate, screen tearing, textures popping in and out, environments not loading, and enough glitches and bugs for a highlight reel.
For example, in the mission “What it Takes to Survive,” players are still experiencing glitches where the environment doesn’t load properly before the player enters a cave at the beginning of the mission. And if the entry does not load, a horde can’t enter; hence the mission does not finish. The only known fix is restarting the game and hoping for the best.
Bend Studio had not worked with the PS4 or the open-world genre, making Days Gone was an incredibly ambitious title for the studio that seemed to pay off. It was a good idea, but where its critical response hit was a lack of polish on the final product: uneven frame rates, texture pop-ins, and a lack of cohesion between missions and side content, and far too much bloat, whereas other PS4 games have proved that more is not always better.
With this experience gained, if Bend Studio does put its head down to create something better than its predecessor, it can develop a thriving franchise that PlayStation fans adore. Using the first game as the base, and addressing the issues it has, Days Gone 2 could be a much tighter, focused, and a polished sequel that doubles down on the game’s story and zombie horde look. Hopefully, Sony will have some exciting surprises with the new PS5 reveal.
Comments
Post a Comment